Elster88

YKYNPFBTYW you didn't know Jacque Jones was on the Cubs. YKSMTKTEW you didn't know Jacque Jones was on the Cubs.

Baby Bears Pierre, CF Cedeno, SS Barrett, C Ramirez, 3B Jones, RF Nevin, 1B Murton, LF Perez, 2B Maddux, P Mets Reyes, SS Lo Duca, C Beltran, CF Delgado, 1B Wright, 3B Floyd, LF Nady, RF Woodward, 2B Trachsel, P

Go

Edgy DC wrote: Sure. So does Clint Eastwood. I've got to give metirish the benefit of the doubt somewhere though, and I'll assume that his Eastwood Jones and his DeNiro DeSire aren't ethnically linked. Sure. I only posted that to be a pain in the neck.

Funny story about about a friend of a relative. She was working at a store (jewelry I think, but can't remember) and was filling out a customer's order form. She asked for his name while looking down at the form but didn't quite hear him. *still looking down* "Could you spell your last name please?" "D-E-N-I-R-O" *Repeating it back as she writes* "D-E-N-I-R......" *looks up, mouth slowly opening in shock* *nods and half-smiles* "Yup" --------- I think it's funny at least. Really needs to be told in person.

Edgy DC wrote: metirish wrote: 4 - Heat 4 - Featured no Irish connections that I know of. I think De Niro has Irish ancestry on his mother's side.

Vic Sage wrote: while i'm right there with you on Donnie Brasco, i have more reservations about HEAT. Despite direction by the excellent Michael Mann, I found this movie overlong and not very interesting. Other than the great scene between DeNiro and Pacino in the diner, i was generally disappointed. Its not terrible. But i didn't think it was particularly good, either. I have watched it many many times and never get bored. This is exactly what makes rating movies so interesting. I am not as into movies as you, so maybe what I think is good filmmaking is not really, but I think as far as direction, story, acting, camerawork and technique/research this is as about as good a movie as can be made. But like I said in the top ten movies thread that doesn't necessarily make a movie fun or interesting. In this case I think it does, and don't understand why everyone doesn't love this movie, but obviously that's JMO.

8. Requiem for a Dream This is the only movie that has effected me on a physical level…which is to say when I got done with this film, I left the theater feeling like I had just been hit in the head with a baseball bat. Oh my god you said it perfectly. I didn't see it in theaters but rented it, and I was depressed for the rest of the day after I watched it. Felt like a zombie.

]The researcher began the game by exerting a fixed amount of pressure on the first volunteer’s finger. The first volunteer was then asked to exert precisely the same amount of pressure on the second volunteer’s finger. The second volunteer was then asked to exert the same amount of pressure on the first volunteer’s finger. And so on. The two volunteers took turns applying equal amounts of pressure to each other’s fingers while the researchers measured the actual amount of pressure they applied. The results were striking. Although volunteers tried to respond to each other’s touches with equal force, they typically responded with about 40 percent more force than they had just experienced. Each time a volunteer was touched, he touched back harder, which led the other volunteer to touch back even harder. What began as a game of soft touches quickly became a game of moderate pokes and then hard prods, even though both volunteers were doing their level best to respond in kind. Each volunteer was convinced that he was responding with equal force and that for some reason the other volunteer was escalating. Neither realized that the escalation was the natural byproduct of a neurological quirk that causes the pain we receive to seem more painful than the pain we produce, so we usually give more pain than we have received. I'm thinking I will never volunteer to participate in a human study. Ever.

I think my top 10 list would stay relatively the same from day to day, it would just take some time to come up with it.

metirish wrote: Steve Phillips thinks they should trade A-Rod,that it's even being talked about is fascinating. http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sports/columnists/cs-060723rogers,1,4103722.column?coll=cs-cubs-utility ]ESPN analyst Steve Phillips, former general manager of the New York Mets, believes the Yankees should deal Rodriguez. "It's become the thing to do in New York to boo Alex Rodriguez," Phillips said Sunday night. "When that happens in New York, it doesn't stop. Now you see it's impacting his performance. Ultimately I don't see how he gets out of this rut. I think they have to trade him." It's fascinating to me too. We are talking about a guy who at current projections could be one of the best players in history. He sure as hell is a better fielder than Barry, even considering his recent lapses, if you want to give Barry the edge in hitting. Basically, Yankee fans suck. A lot of Met fans do too, though, sadly.

Johnny Dickshot wrote: Jeter and Arod are both Hall of Famers, Bernie could be, and Mariano is, and Torre is, and Johnson is, and Mussina and Giambi are longshots but have a chance. And they can barely stay out of third place. That's a little misleading.

MFS62 wrote: Then, about ten years ago, I learned from someone who works at the FBI that my prior associate was "moving up fast on the "10 Most Wanted" list, but he didn't go into any details about the offense he committed. Wow. I wonder what number he is now.

What are your favorite movies? Not which ones have the best stories, have the best acting, or were the most groundbreaking in cinematography....unless those are the criteria you use to pick your favorite movies. As In the Bedroom taught us, a movie can have all the pieces of a great movie and still be a snooze-fest. These are the movies that you would bring with you if you had to live for a year on a deserted island that came equipped with electricity and surround sound. And don't pick a movie just because it has the Katie Holmes' nude scene, because you can bring stills with you from any movie you want. Rank them 1-10 if you can.

Oops.

SteveJRogers wrote: SC=100% (percentage a guy like ARod should get in his first year on the HOF ballot, Jeter and Ortiz not even close) Jeter should be a first ballot HOFer too. A lot of basehits over the years. As much as it gets overhyped, he actually does have some key playoff hits in his career.

If you'd rather watch this one before Donnie Brasco, you have permission. One of these days if we get a personal top-ten thread movie, these two will duke it out as my favorites.

I want more votes too. Edgy, go check this one out. Irish, head to your local Blockbuster. Yancy, use your Netflix account for something other than comic book movies. This may be a little too mature for some of the Diamond family, but maybe one off-day when the kids have gone to sleep. Willets, stop washing your Squid costume and pop it in the DVD player. KC, instead of scouring your sources to get the lineup before Willie even writes it down, spend the two hours before the game watching this movie. iubitul, put the camera down. I figure Val is probably drinking beer and hanging with some chick at college, but he can skip two hours of library/study time and watch this. Cooby, just come back and post, you don't have to watch it if you don't want to. I rarely feel this strongly about a movie. The other one is Heat. Hmmmm.... (I hope everyone takes this post in the spirit it's intended in.)

Link Donnie Brasco BY ROGER EBERT / February 27, 1997 Norman Mailer told us tough guys don't dance, but in the movies, it's mostly tough guys who do dance. We're so leery of close emotional bonds between men that the movies are only comfortable showing them if the guys are cops, jocks, soldiers or mobsters. Beneath everything else, ``Donnie Brasco'' is the story of two men who grow to love each other, within the framework of a teacher-student relationship. It's not about sex. It's about need. The movie opens in a New York coffee shop that's a hangout for the mob. A young guy named Donnie (Johnny Depp) comes in and talks disrespectfully to an older guy named Lefty (Al Pacino). Lefty can't believe his ears: ``You're calling me a dumbski? You know who you're talkin' to? Lefty from Mulberry Street!'' As if that means anything. Actually, though, it means a lot to Donnie Brasco, whose real name is Joe Pistone, and who is an undercover agent for the FBI. He gradually wins Lefty's trust, and it becomes clear that Lefty badly needs someone to trust; he has cancer, his son is a junkie, and his mob career is going nowhere. Donnie is a good-looking kid who listens well, and Lefty desperately needs to be a mentor. In another world, he would have been your favorite high school teacher. ``If I say you're a friend of mine, that means you're connected,'' Lefty explains to Donnie. ``If I say you're a friend of ours, that means you're a made guy. If I introduce you, I'm responsible for you. Anything wrong with you, I go down.'' The movie is based on a 1978 book inspired by the real ``Donnie Brasco'' case (its author is still living in the government witness protection program). The story plays like a companion to ``GoodFellas,'' with the same lore, the same fierce Mafia code, the same alternation between sudden violence and weird comedy. (At one point, Lefty is summoned to a meeting with his boss and expects to be killed. Instead he's given a present--a lion, because he likes to watch wild animals on videos.) The British director Mike Newell, whose biggest hit was ``Four Weddings and a Funeral,'' might seem like a strange choice for this material, but he's the right one, because the movie is not really about violence or action, it's about friendship. We can see immediately why Lefty is drawn to Donnie, but it takes a little longer to see why Donnie begins to like Lefty. After all, a guy risks his life because he trusts you; you can't help feeling like a rat if you're double-crossing him. Michael Madsen plays the boss Lefty reports to. He's tall, tough, relentless--and scared, too, because when he gets bumped up a notch, the job includes a $50,000 monthly payment to the guy above him. A lot of the time these guys spend hanging around their social club, playing cards and complaining that business is bad. In this movie, Mafia guys don't get away with anything: With them, it's work, work, work, just like with everybody else. Donnie has some ideas for them, including a club in Florida that he thinks might make them some money. But opening night goes wrong, and although they suspect a stoolie in their midst, what they do not suspect is that a rival mob faction was responsible. Every time I see a Mafia movie, I wonder how any Mafiosi can still be alive, given the rate of sudden, violent attrition and the willingness to shoot first and find out the rest of the facts later. The Florida project and the other jobs are a backdrop for the relationship between Donnie and Lefty, which is complicated because the FBI agent has a wife and kids squirreled away in the suburbs, who go for weeks at a time without hearing from him. He can't even tell them what he does (nor would they believe him). ``I pretend I'm a widow,'' his wife tells him. Eventually all of the threads, personal and criminal, come down to one moment when Lefty either will or will not act on what he knows, or thinks he knows. As the two men face their moment of truth, we are reminded what fine acting the movie contains. We expect it from Pacino, who is on ground he knows well, and is poignant and gentle as a man who is ``just a spoke in the wheel,'' a loyal soldier who lives and dies by the rules. For Johnny Depp, ``Donnie Brasco'' breaks new ground; he seems a little older here, a little wearier, and he makes the transition from stoolie to friend one subtle step at a time. The violence in this movie is gruesome (a scene involving the disposal of bodies is particularly graphic). But the movie has many human qualities and contains what will be remembered as one of Pacino's finest scenes. At an important moment in his life, he puts some things in a drawer. He starts to leave, then thinks again, turns back and leaves the drawer ajar. What this implies and how it plays creates the perfect ending for the film, which fades to black--only to start up again with unnecessary footnotes. No matter; I'll remember that scene.

Let's get some reviews. I have no skill as a reviewer.

]You see it in how tightly he grips the bat. You see how much slower his swing has become, his muscles overloaded with tension. Even the exaggerated deep breaths before he steps to the plate suggest the pressure has gotten to Rodriguez. Crap like this cracks me up. It's amazing how every reporter and mediot can judge body language like a 40-year CIA veteran, and how they always find exactly what they need to support their viewpoint. In fact ARod's been doing the "exaggerated deep breaths" since Seattle. (And I think he hit like .425 in the '99 Seattle-Yank series.)

My all time favorite movie about Mafia characters. I have seen the Godfather 1, 2, and Goodfellas. To call it a Mafia movie is also way too constricting. It's a great character story(study?) with some genuine real-life truth (not just that inspired crap). Pacino, Depp, and Madsen are about as good as it gets. I'm not a fan of Anne Heche but I thought she was very good to excellent. If you haven't seen it, don't do it the injustice of dismissing it because you don't like "Mafia movies". It isn't one.

The stuff we put together in those threads as a forum is much more comprehensive and meaningful than any blurb that Klapisch could hope to write. I doubt there will ever be a new way of viewing the "boo or not to boo" argument, for either side, that hasn't already been discussed here.

Delgado 3.25 Floyd 1.25 Lo Duca 1.25 Oliver 0.75

Keith thinks the radar guns to gauge pitch speed read a little faster than they did in the 80's.